By the DynaSis Team

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IT consultants for many firms, whether they promote themselves as IT support companies or managed service providers, will tell you they are going to “monitor and manage” your systems and/or network. Others may say they specialize in “network and systems administration.” As a business owner seeking the most protection for your IT systems—and value for your investment—you likely wonder, what does this mean? Are all these types of services the same? How do they protect me and my company?

These are important questions you should ask of any current or prospective IT provider. To help you evaluate the answers you receive, here is some background.

From a generic perspective, network and system monitoring and management means keeping an eye on your network (and potentially its devices) and your servers or other IT hardware, to enable intervention before or after problems arise. Network and systems administration, generically, means the same thing, although some providers who “administer” do not “monitor.”

For a reactive IT solutions provider, this could mean looking at weekly or monthly logs (reports) of system “error codes” to see if anything might be going wrong. If the provider notes any obvious problems, they might notify the customer and ask if they want follow up (often for an additional fee). Alternately, they might not report the aberration but instead will note it, in case problems occur down the road. Neither of these approaches is cost effective in the long-run, and they also don’t promote system stability.

A proactive managed IT services firm, on the other hand, will likely provide remote monitoring. The service will scan the network and systems for problems, analyzing traffic and other information using advanced processes to identify signs of impending trouble. It will also create alerts for changing conditions, such as the need for system updates. The IT provider’s staff will have access to real-time performance data and can intervene to troubleshoot, respond to alerts and more, which helps to avert serious trouble before it occurs. (We call this issue avoidance.)

Proactive versus reactive IT service is an important distinction, as the examples above show. Some IT providers follow what we call a “break-fix” model—“If it breaks, we will come fix it.” Firms like this are at the far end of the reactive spectrum. They rarely have the ability to perform any automated monitoring or proactive troubleshooting and issue avoidance. Providers such as these may try to minimize the value of proactive services, asserting they are not worth the expense. Some will even mislead potential customers with obscure service descriptions.

In our experience, proactive network and system monitoring can dramatically increase system uptime, more than paying for itself in productivity gains. For small and midsized businesses hoping to grow and thrive, it provides another benefit. Per a study conducted by IT automation firm Kaseya, using remote, automated monitoring tools for both routine tasks and problem avoidance enables personnel to spend more time on strategic projects that drive productivity—and the success of the business.

DynaSis has been providing managed IT support services to Metro Atlanta’s small to midsized businesses since 1992. We provide Availability – making sure your network is up and running; Mobility – allowing your employees world-wide access to your network; and Security – as an Internet security company, we resolve “issues” before they grow into problems. If you want to learn more, please visit www.DynaSis.com, or call us at 678.218.1769.

By the DynaSis Team

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With bad news about cybersecurity hitting the media nearly daily (including recent attacks on healthcare organizations), it’s hard for a business owner to know what to do. It’s also easy to think, “Let’s focus on securing what we have and not add anything else to the mix.” Certainly, securing corporate assets (along with training the employees not to expose them) is a sound idea. However, refusing to explore new ideas and technologies out of concern for security isn’t the safest strategy.

One approach that has proven security value is virtualization. With virtualization, a company’s files and other digital assets are distributed by designated criteria and stored, not all together on one physical or cloud server, but rather on multiple “virtual” servers. These are discrete partitions, each of which can have its own level of security, access control and other protections, yet all can reside on a single on-premise or cloud resource. Assets can be separated by user, with each department or employee having its own virtual resource; by security need, with public, private and sensitive/proprietary files each on different virtual servers; or by any other criteria.

It may be a bit confusing to imagine how a group of files on a single server can be separated so completely, so here’s an analogy. Consider an overcoat with one or more hidden pockets. The wearer can put his wallet and all other valuables into one hidden pocket, but if a thief finds the pocket, everything will be gone. He or she could also divide those valuables among several hidden pockets, reducing the chances of the thief finding all of them—and increasing the time it takes. One or more pocket could be secured with multiple defenses, making those valuables the safest, of all.

Expanding this example, imagine now that owner is carrying candy for his or her small children and a present for the spouse. He or she puts the candy in a hidden pocket at the waist, but puts the presents in a zippered breast pocket. Upon arriving home, the children can find the candy quickly, because they can reach—and know how to open—the right pockets. However, they won’t be able to reach or see the hidden present intended for someone else.

That’s exactly how virtualization works. It isolates data in the manner that the corporate decision maker desires, making it more difficult not only for outsiders to find it, but also for the firm’s own “children”—employees—to discover files they are not supposed to see or access. Virtualization also makes is easier and less expensive to secure mission critical resources, since the most aggressive security efforts can focus on a single “pocket” rather than the entire coat.

Virtualization used to be considered one of the more advanced IT solutions, but that is no longer the case. Managed services firms routinely orchestrate virtualization for their customers. However, the best, most experienced managed IT services companies proactively work with organizations to ensure virtualization solutions optimize security and productivity while minimizing cost and complexity.

Selection of an IT outsourcing company is a very important business decision. For almost a quarter century, Atlanta’s small to mid-sized businesses have relied on DynaSis’ for managed IT services, internet security, and 24 x 7 x 365 helpdesk support. Today, with cybercrime becoming an ever-increasing threat, DynaSis has become an industry leader in network protection and ransomware prevention. Please take a tour through our website at www.DynaSis.com or speak with a technical expert at 678.218.1769.

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By the DynaSis Team

Almost as long as there have been heroes and villains, there have been stories about “super powers”—superhuman or supernatural abilities possessed by normal humans. So prevalent are these “powers” in history and fiction that Wikipedia lists more than 250 of them.

Organizations can have (or appear to have) super powers, too. While they may not be paranormal or supernatural, the most successful businesses all have attributes that make their customers and competitors say, “How do they do that so well?” “It doesn’t seem possible!”

Here’s an example. Some businesses not only anticipate when customers need to reorder products; they also project what other products and services the firms will want or need, next. They know exactly when to approach their customers, as if they were reading the decision makers’ minds.

In reality, these companies and their sales people are likely harnessing and analyzing available data to discern patterns and then making educated assumptions. Ten years ago, this wasn’t possible, but a new crop of business intelligence tools is revolutionizing the information and insight available to proactive firms.

Technology Has Super Powers, Too

Super powers can appear in any area of the business. Since DynaSis is an information technology (IT) and managed IT services firm, our President, David (Dave) Moorman, focused on technology when he began exploring super powers. At first glance, one might assume that technology super powers are all related to operation, such as the ability to keep systems and networks functional 99.999% of the time.

Although availability (along with mobility and security) is a cornerstone of business success, it’s not, by itself, a super power. Dave determined that the greatest technology super power is something most organizational leaders don’t consider. He calls it “technology capability,” which he defines as “an organization’s ability to create business value through its IT assets and competency.”

IT hardware and software can support business functions, but by themselves they don’t propel a company’s success. Similarly, having workers that can use technology at a basic level may get tasks done, but it won’t take a business to the top. Rather, companies that develop true IT capability are those that have adopted the most appropriate technologies and are using them in the most effective ways—and whose employees are working with them in a collaborative, connected fashion.

As Dave noted in his article, Technology Capability: Your Business “Super Power,” which you can download here, “IT assets alone do not equal capability. How a company makes use of those assets, and how well it integrates them—both with one another and across the enterprise—is what drives organizational prosperity, competitiveness, agility and innovation.”

Such an approach promotes outcomes where the total accomplishment is greater than the sum of its parts. In doing so, organizations can take a significant step towards becoming a business “super power,” themselves. In the article referenced above, Dave digs into the specifics of how organizational leaders can begin this journey by developing IT capability for their own firms. We hope you will enjoy reading it.

For small to midsized business owners and executives who are concerned about managed IT support services and network threat protection, DynaSis is one company that has been at the forefront since 1992. In this ever evolving world of cybercrime, crypto virus and network access protection have become critical to every company’s security. DynaSis also provides 24 x 7 x 365 outsourced managed IT services, with its own trained staff for helpdesk, real-time monitoring and the DynaSis Business Cloud, for highly secure data storage and backup. You can find out more by calling us at 678.218.1769, or checking out our website at www.DynaSis.com.

By the DynaSis Team

When we speak with companies for the first time, one activity we always suggest is an IT Assessment. Unless a firm has recently had an assessment—or is so well organized and disciplined that it’s systems and network are always up to date and running at peak condition—an IT Assessment can be an instrumental planning tool.

Yet, some business leaders don’t understand the value of an IT Assessment, or they are worried it will be too disruptive to their business. Others are concerned that the true purpose of the assessment is to sell them expensive upgrades they cannot afford.

If you have refused an offer of an IT Assessment for these or other reasons, and you have never experienced the benefits of an IT assessment, we hope you will read this article. In the rapidly evolving world of technology, firms simply cannot decide where they want to go, and then plan to go there in a cost-effective, practical fashion, until they have had an IT Assessment.

Many companies work with technology every day without any idea of the condition of their IT networks and whether their systems are functioning at an optimal, or even an acceptable level. Most do not fully know what IT assets (hardware and software) are in use. Without this information, a business decision maker cannot possibly prioritize and manage the technology initiatives that minimize downtime, security holes and other operating problems. An IT Assessment provides exactly the insight and visibility that organizations need to gain this knowledge and prepare for a brighter technology future.

As was pointed out in a recent article on IT complexity and reliability (an interesting, if fairly high-level read): “Since it is impossible to avoid failures in IT systems, modern IT operations strive to minimize the impact of failure by increasing the responsiveness of systems (i.e. automatic failover) and people (i.e. incident response) when problems arise.”

There is no better way to start the process of increasing system responsiveness, and to gain beneficial insight into the problems that affect people (and are caused by them), than with an IT Assessment. Best of all, the most proficient Managed IT Service providers can conduct an IT assessment with minimal disruption to the workforce or corporate operations. Much of the information gathering can be handled by running an assessment tool that only collects system and inventory information and does not collect any company data, causing little to no system impact.

DynaSis recently released a white paper entitled “The Value of an IT Assessment.” It offers more information on how organizations benefit from IT Assessments and details what they should expect when they engage in them. We invite you to read it at your convenience.

DynaSis has been providing managed IT support services to Metro Atlanta’s small to midsized businesses since 1992. We provide Availability—making sure your network is up and running; Mobility— allowing your employees world-wide access to your network; and Security—as an Internet security company, we resolve “issues” before they grow into problems. If you want to learn more, please visit www.DynaSis.com, or call us at 678.218.1769.

By the DynaSis Team

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We have been fans of cloud computing for quite some time, and many of our discussions relate to its value, its growth and its outlook. Last week, we came across a recent article, from Computer Business Review, that does a good job of summing up several of its most fundamental benefits. In a nutshell, the article cites five top benefits of cloud computing, and then goes into a bit more detail about each:

1. Streamline collaboration
2. Convert capital expense into operational gain
3. Support BYOD
4. Simplify technology
5. Ensure business continuity

In the article, the writer describes the cloud’s role in “Support BYOD” at a fundamental level. He points out that BYOD, whereby employees own the mobile devices they use for work, would not have developed as rapidly without the secure, flexible access to corporate resources that cloud computing facilitates.

While this is true, it is important to recognize that the cloud plays a much larger role in maximizing BYOD—and for that matter, the adoption of remote working as a whole. When corporate resources are in the cloud, employees and other authorized individuals can connect via any device with an Internet connection.

Whether via a mobile phone, tablet, laptop, or desktop—or, increasingly, a personal device such as a smartwatch—the cloud connects workers with their companies around the clock and around the globe. The value of this benefit for propelling productivity, worker satisfaction, and even business innovation cannot be understated.

In addition to the five benefits addressed by Computer Business Review, we can add a few more:

1. Reduce worker downtime
2. Minimize or eliminate peripheral IT costs (such as those associated with floor space and electric bills for on-site operations)
3. Enable on-demand resource changes (e.g. increasing server space)
4. Promote document centralization and control
5. Minimize software licensing and management
6. Reduce or eliminate the need for on-site support staff

Depending on the managed IT service provider and operating model chosen, the cloud can offer additional benefits, as well. For example, some providers have the cloud certifications to guarantee audit-grade compliance of cloud resources. Many cloud models now enable separation of workloads, so companies can establish varied access controls based on the sensitivity and importance of materials and the authorization level of individuals that need access.

Of course, not all companies will take advantage of every cloud computing benefit. Some may focus on savings, while others will find the technology invaluable for the connectivity and collaboration it enables. Over time, many organizations adopt new, business-building approaches because they are available so readily in the cloud.

True cloud innovation can be more readily facilitated with the help of an enthusiastic, qualified cloud services provider, which makes it very important for organizations to select their cloud partners carefully. The open, mutable nature of the cloud also enables IT services providers to develop customized solutions for their clients, from dedicated private servers to all-inclusive, 100% IT support for both cloud and on-premise resources, such as desktops.

In today’s cloud computing market, when organizations work with the right cloud service partner and are open to new ways of thinking, the sky really is the limit (no pun intended). All a business owner needs to do is reach up and grasp the potential inherent in the cloud.

DynaSis is an Atlanta IT services and cloud computing provider for small and midsized businesses. All of our solutions focus on helping companies achieve the three fundamental IT necessities of the modern business—availability, security and mobility. We specialize in on-demand and on-premises managed IT services, managed cloud infrastructure, desktops and backups, and professional hardware and equipment installation. For more information about DynaSis’ IT support and services, visit www.dynasis.com.

By the DynaSis Team

In past articles, we have discussed the value of written policies to direct and define expectations for corporate security. We have talked about the importance of having strong employee security policies that not only educate but also clarify what behaviors are unacceptable—and potentially actionable.

As we head into a year predicted to be more dangerous than ever before in terms of cyber-risk, we offer you a list, developed with the input of DynaSis’ in-house security experts, of the principal elements a data security policy should include. When complete, such a resource will help to manage the activities and behaviors of personnel and provide support for the organization’s risk management strategy.

Nine Essential Elements of a Best Practices Data Security Policy

Data Privacy: What sensitive/confidential data the organization retains (including a plan for classifying data, if uncertainty exists) along with a program for securing, retaining and disposing of it. If the firm is subject to regulatory mandates, such as HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996), how the firm will comply.

Password Management: Rules that define the content of passwords; how often they must be changed; how they are administered.

Internet Usage: What personal Internet usage is allowed at the workplace, if any, with a list of restricted site types. Information to help employees identify and avoid risky/infected sites. Also should include restrictions on Internet usage outside the corporate network (e.g. unsecured Wi-Fi sites) as well as prohibitions on establishing unauthorized Internet access points within the network.

Email Usage: How and where personnel can retrieve and send email, including prohibited behaviors such as transmitting corporate email over unsecured networks or allowing non-employees to send messages through a corporate account.

Company-owned devices: How and where company-owned devices may be operated; restrictions, if any, on the types of data stored on them; procedures in the event of damage, theft or loss.

Employee-owned mobile devices: Whether or not company data (including email) may be accessed or stored on personal devices. If personal devices are used for work and are company controlled, restrictions similar to those for company-owned devices may apply.

Social Media: Whether or not, and how, employees may use social media at the workplace or on company-controlled devices. Prohibitions, if any, on sharing information about the company, its personnel and its operations over social media.

Software Copyright & Licensing: Prohibitions against installing and using unapproved or unlicensed software on company servers. May also include how the company maintains its software licenses and how often it updates that software.

Security Incident Reporting: Policies and procedures for reporting security incidents. Incidents include not only activities (e.g. loss or theft of a mobile device) but also potential attempted intrusions, such as receipt of a suspicious email message. Personnel should be encouraged to report any activity or communication they are not certain is safe.

This list is extensive, but it is not exhaustive. Depending on the organization, industry and business model, additional information might be appropriate for inclusion. We have also excluded complex technology-layer policies, such as encryption policies and incident response procedures. Those are a discussion for a different day.

DynaSis has been Atlanta’s premier IT support services provider for more than 23 years. As an IT company working with small to midsized businesses (10 to 150+ users), DynaSis has developed a unique 12-layer approach to network threat protection, ransomware prevention and crypto virus threat elimination. The DynaSis Business Cloud functions through a highly secure environment with full real-time data backup. Please contact us at 678.218.1769 or visit our website at www.DynaSis.com.

By the DynaSis Team

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DynaSis Founder and President Dave Moorman has released the second article in his IT for the C-Suite series, a collection of articles that details how business leaders and other C-level executives can use technology to improve business agility, security and productivity—and power the organization’s success. “Technology Outcomes Every C-Level Executive Should Expect” details the three fundamental benefits of technology from Moorman’s perspective, and explores in detail why these benefits are so important.

Increasing Productivity: Maximizing the use of technology to enhance the business effort and foster great customer service.

Reducing Expense: Hosting and maintaining a modern, properly managed IT infrastructure to reduce technology overhead and potentially shrink the organization’s ownership and management footprint for both technology and physical space.

Minimizing Risk: Implementing a cloud-based model to make it statistically impossible for corporate assets to be destroyed or displaced by a single event business.

Moorman illustrates his point by briefly discussing some of the world’s great business success stories—entrepreneurs who created an incredibly successful business model by relying almost exclusively on technology.

Backed by credible statistics and reports, Moorman offers solid advice on how technology helps business leaders achieve these three goals, and why it is so essential for them to place appropriate emphasis on technology. He also helps them envision how they can start leveraging technology to realize the advantages discussed in the article.

All of his advice, in this article and beyond, is designed to help even the most traditional operation become innovative and extraordinary—not only enjoying success today, but establishing the competitive advantage that is vital to ongoing business development and value.

By following the advice in Moorman’s article, C-level executives can help transform their operations into what Moorman calls “the Modern Business”—One whose leadership “embraces and leverages technology to deliver targeted, advantageous outcomes in the organization.” As he notes in this article, Moorman views technology not merely as an enabler, but literally as the fulcrum that provides leverage for success.

It’s a great read, and we hope you enjoy it! To download the PDF, use the link above, or click here.

About DynaSis

DynaSis is an Atlanta IT services and cloud computing provider for small and midsized businesses. All of our solutions focus on helping companies achieve the three fundamental IT necessities of the modern business—availability, security and mobility. We specialize in on-demand and on-premise managed IT services, managed cloud infrastructure, desktops and backups, and professional hardware and equipment installation. For more information about DynaSis’ IT support and services, visitwww.dynasis.com.

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By the DynaSis Team

Availability has become a pervasive buzzword regarding technology, but what does it really mean? More importantly, is it as vital to your operation as IT providers would have you believe?

In the technology world, availability is used as a formal term for uptime—the amount of time, over a year, that a computing system's resources are available. As we discussed in our recent article, "Moving Your Business to the Cloud: Three Top Reasons Why the Time Is Now," system availability is generally measured in "nines." Best practices availability for corporate efficiency is 99.99%. At that level, an organization can expect to suffer less than an hour of downtime per year (52 minutes and 35.7 seconds, to be exact).

On a more general basis, "availability" is a characteristic that enables a resource to be usable, on demand, to perform its designated or required function. From this perspective, businesses measure availability for many resources beyond computer systems. Companies often track availability of portable IT assets such as laptops and tablets; they also track the availability of personnel, conference rooms and more.

For businesses, availability is an irreplaceable driver of productivity. The more resources of all types that are available to a company and its employees, the more the organization can accomplish. Nowhere is this truer than with IT availability. At 99% availability—a mere percentage point from the 99.99% level we mention above, a firm can expect to experience three days, 15 hours, 39 minutes and 29.5 seconds of availability, each year.

Downtime may not be a big deal if it happens when the offices are closed, but if outages occur during the working day, they can be deeply disruptive. Additionally, if downtime occurs during important, off-hour operations such as system backups, it can cause major headaches and potentially data loss. For firms that sell or service customers online, downtime of any amount and at any time can lead to lost sales and reduced customer loyalty.

For this reason, we believe that availability is one of the most—if not the most—important corporate assets. Security and mobility are also pivotal to business success, but unless resources of all types are readily available for personnel and processes to use, an operation will literally be unable to function.

Availability is not automatic. Businesses employ scheduling solutions to ensure availability of people and physical resources. For computing systems, IT providers go even further, using specialized techniques, such as hardware redundancy, load balancing and proactive system monitoring, to sharply curtail the likelihood of downtime. They also maintain and manage the cloud environments that help businesses enjoy the highest possible availability of digital resources, as well.

All of these efforts become woven into the fabric of daily operations—unnoticed until they break down. Prudent business owners do everything they can to ensure that never happens.

About DynaSis

DynaSis is an Atlanta IT services and cloud computing provider for small and midsized businesses. All of our solutions focus on helping companies achieve the three fundamental IT necessities of the modern business—availability, security and mobility. We specialize in on-demand and on-premise managed IT services, managed cloud infrastructure, desktops and backups, and professional hardware and equipment installation. For more information about DynaSis’ IT support and services, visit www.dynasis.com.

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By the DynaSis Team

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)—a cloud computing solution wherein a firm’s data servers and other related resources reside in an offsite data center rather than at the organization’s physical location—is fast becoming a solution of choice among modern businesses. Servers no longer need to be physical boxes, sitting in a server closet at the office. Thanks to virtualization, a server can reside anywhere, with secure access to it provided over a high-speed Internet connection. In most cases, firms can pay to have their own, discrete server hosted at the data center, or they can lease a server allocation carved from a much higher-capacity storage device that is shared by multiple companies yet isolated and secured through software from intrusion.

With IaaS, hosting companies provide, not only the storage space itself, but also the operating system and any necessary hardware to make the server secure and functional. IaaS providers also handle server maintenance and monitoring, as well as backup and sometimes administration. These virtual servers can host not only a firm’s data but also its email systems and most, if not all, of its software and other computing resources.

With IaaS, companies pay for the server space and related operations through an ongoing weekly, monthly or yearly fee. They don’t own the physical hardware, so the cost is an operating expense rather than a capital expense. IaaS platforms are highly scalable, so allocations can be adjusted up or down on demand.

Adopting IaaS offers companies numerous benefits, not the least of which is the elimination of hardware and operating system acquisition, management and maintenance. IaaS also reduces the IT burden associated with owning server hardware and eliminates the possibility of a server outage. (Servers can and do crash in data centers, of course, but hosting providers have built-in redundancy and failover programs that ensure continuity of service even in the event of a server crash.) Most providers guarantee uptime of 99.999% (“five nines”), which is 5.26 minutes of downtime, per year.

Research firms such as Yankee Group report that IaaS brings companies numerous benefits beyond hardware/software savings and capacity management. Other benefits include greater resiliency (disaster recovery/business continuity), more effective resource utilization (firms pay only for the server space they need), and sheer convenience, since business leaders and their workers can access corporate data and applications from any Internet-connected location.

Furthermore, many companies report that IaaS enhances both worker productivity and business innovation, often significantly. IaaS expedites communication and collaboration, even among remote workers. It is a key driver of mobility, which has long been proven to boost employee efficiency and satisfaction.

For the business leader, the time, money and energy not spent on making technology purchase and management decisions, as well as hiring and managing technology staff, can be diverted to business growth. Finally, the ability to expand server capacity on demand lets firms grow their resources quickly for special projects, product development and other needs, making them more competitive and willing to pursue innovative ideas.

In fact, an Oxford Economics survey found that 36 percent of responding firms adopted cloud solutions such as IaaS, not based on the traditional drivers such as cost savings and resiliency, but rather for their innovation benefits. Per the report, the transformation brought about by IaaS and other cloud solutions is “fundamentally altering business processes, [bringing] incredible opportunities, including the ability to build a real-time enterprise where interaction and innovation flourish." We couldn’t agree more.

About DynaSis
DynaSis is an Atlanta IT services and cloud computing provider for small and midsized businesses. All of our solutions focus on helping companies achieve the three fundamental IT necessities of the modern business—availability, security and mobility. We specialize in on-demand and on-premise managed IT services, managed cloud infrastructure, desktops and backups, and professional hardware and equipment installation. For more information about DynaSis’ IT support and services, visit www.dynasis.com.

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File sharing and synchronization between multiple devices have become near-necessities for most businesses in today’s corporate environment. Among the three IT “pillars” for business today―mobility, security and availability―two are strongly tied to company personnel having anytime, anywhere access to corporate files. That usually (but not always) means a move to cloud computing in some form, and for many firms, it increasingly means DropBox or Google Drive.

These solutions are easy and inexpensive to use, encouraging small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to take a benign view of them. In companies without a formalized file sharing and syncing system, many employees adopt Dropbox or Google Drive (or both) on their own, outside the corporate structure but with corporate files stored on them.

This is a simple answer to a problem, but it’s not the most secure or efficient one. Here are just a few of the many concerns:

• Third-party file storage runs on a large public cloud, and as a result is generally riskier than other forms of cloud storage. This is especially true of the “consumer-grade” forms of cloud storage, which may offer fewer security protections than their enterprise counterparts.
• If users store their passwords for personal cloud storage on improperly secured mobile devices, the problem becomes even bigger.
• When employees store corporate files on a non-corporate resource, they are likely causing them to become out of sync with other circulating versions and potentially inaccessible to other personnel in the company.
• Most of these providers don’t automatically backup user files in a way that makes them easily accessible for retrieval in the event of file corruption or accidental deletion.

Even one of these criteria should motivate business owners to shut down use of personal cloud storage at the office, yet it continues to proliferate. Prudent business owners will deploy an enterprise-grade file storage/sharing/sync solution and develop a formal policy that requires its use.

However, resistance to change can be strong, so what can a firm do to persuade its personnel―and most importantly the mobile workforce―to drop kick Dropbox and other personal cloud storage to the curb, at least for corporate files? Here are a few suggestions.

• Include end users―especially respected “thought leaders” among the staff―by asking them what features matters to them and what challenges they would like to resolve. Then, do your best to address these requests or have a logical reason why you cannot. This will increase buy-in.
• Look for a solution that is fast and seamless―security features, in particular, shouldn’t slow down the workforce or you will get pushback.
• Focus on usability and utility to end-users during the trial. Once you’ve selected a solution, develop promotional messages that showcase user-requested features.

With so many enterprise-grade file storage/sharing/syncing offerings available, some solid research will help you find one that works for the business and its personnel. We’ve even seen storage-related IT services where corporate files remain on the office servers, but personnel can access and share them remotely through a cloud-based solution.